Consensus Reports

These reports are unique, authoritative expert evaluations. Each report
is produced by a committee of experts selected by the Academy to address
a particular statement of task and is subject to a rigorous,
independent peer review.

The availability of tools to assess human health risks from chemical exposures have increased rapidly in the 21st century. For example, new personal sensors and sampling techniques offer unparalleled opportunities to characterize individual exposures, new in vitro assays can now evaluate a number of cellular processes and responses, and -omics technologies have advanced molecular epidemiology, which focuses on underlying biology rather tha...
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Earthquake-induced soil liquefaction is a leading cause of earthquake damage worldwide. Studies often describe liquefaction as the phenomena of seismic generation of excess porewater* pressures, which then soften granular soils. Many regions in the United States have been witness to liquefaction and its consequences, such as the inability of soils to support the foundations of buildings and other infrastructure.
Past damage and destructio...
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Sixteen years into the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program, several project components are completed or nearing completion and are beginning to yield measurable results, especially in terms of creating hydrologic conditions increasingly similar to pre-drainage flows. This sixth biennial review of the $16.4 billion CERP project finds that, although measurable progress is being made, there is insufficient attention on radically changin...
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Marine mammals face many natural and human stressors that can harm populations. Progress has been made in understanding the response of marine mammals to noise, but estimating risks to marine mammal populations requires understanding how the full array of stressors interact. This report offers a conceptual framework and research strategies to improve the ability to assess cumulative stressors to marine mammal populations and identify whic...
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The report examines the production and utilization of molybdenum-99 and associated medical isotopes used in medical imaging. It also assesses progress made toward eliminating highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the targets used to produce molybdenum-99 production and promoting the utilization of molybdenum-99 from non-HEU sources. The report was mandated by the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2012 and it is the second of the tw...
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